The District of Kitimat is in the annual process to adopt the 2026 budget. Use this page to learn more about the process and to provide your input for the top priority for you.
The District of Kitimat's budget process runs through the fall and winter, and it's a long process to figure out how the District will allocate funds.
The final budget is adopted around May of each year, and there are key steps along the way.
Here's the process Kitimat typically follows when it comes to working out its budget:
Community Grants
The District of Kitimat supports several community organizations by way of annual grants.
Council typically refers these grants to budget deliberations after being presented by the organization.
This year, the presentations were held on November 12, 2025. You can can find the presentations as part of that meeting's agenda, at www.kitimat.ca/agendas.
Early Capital Approval
Through the budget process there are also requests for early approval of capital projects from departments in the District of Kitimat. Because the final budget isn't approved until later in the year, Council often considers early approval of capital projects from the departments in the District of Kitimat. This allows us to secure the materials and services needed to complete the projects.
Finishing the budget
The budget is eventually finalized by the adoption of a new Five-Year Financial Plan, Tax Rates Bylaw, and the year's Residential Flat Tax Amendment Bylaw.
All this discussion takes place at public Council meetings.
Information about our budget is online at www.kitimat.ca/budget.
The majority of the District’s revenue is from property owners through property taxes.
We collect taxes from six classes of properties.
The below chart shows what percentage each class of property pays as their portion of our property tax revenues, calculated for 2025:
| Residential | Utility | Major Industry | Light Industry | Business / Commercial | Other |
| 14.27% | 1.22% | 75.47% | .91% | 7.97% | .16% |
To wrap up this topic, here's a few other things to know about your annual property tax bill:
- Municipal water and solid waste collection are each also a separately listed, fixed cost on your property tax bill. They are $205 and $146, respectively.
- Kitimat collects taxes on behalf of other taxing authorities. That means the total on your bill also includes the regional district, school district, and North West Hospital District, among a few others.
Assessed values are an important piece of your annual property taxes, but it’s not exactly a straight line between the change in your assessment and the cost on a property tax bill.
Kitimat's property taxes are a mix of a mill rate (also called a variable), which means a certain amount that is charged per $1,000 of assessed value of your home, and a flat tax.
As Council determines each year what budget is necessary for municipal operations and projects, a tax rate is set to collect that amount. Your property's assessed value determines what you pay based on that tax rate.
Here is how the municipal taxes looked on a typical assessed value home in Kitimat in 2025 compared to 2024: (Typical assessed value as stated by BC Assessment.)
Year | Typical assessed value | Mill rate | Flat Tax | Total |
2024 | $344,000 | $1.82403 / per $1,000 | $723 | $1,350.46 |
2025 | $345,000 | $2.01745 / per $1,000 | $763 | $1,459.02 |
The change on this typical assessed home in Kitimat works out to a $108.56 increase for the year. The change on your specific tax notice will depend on changes to your own home’s assessed value.
Kitimat also charges a standalone levy for water service and curbside waste collection. The water rate is $205 for the year, and the curbside collection fee is $146.
The 2026 budget process
Your 2026 priorities
What is your top priority for 2026's budget?
Feel free to submit an item that you feel is a personal high priority for the District of Kitimat. We take the feedback collected here and present it to Council during the budget process. While there's no direct guarantee your suggestion will be directly addressed, it is helpful feedback to support the community's direction. (max 140 characters).
No submissions yet.
What you told us and what we're doing
The community provided a lot of great input for last year's request for budget priorities. Through the course of the budget process in 2025 we provided the public's responses to Council for their awareness.
Items of priority shared to us included:
- Incentives for revitalizing buildings in the community.
- More general public works projects such as sidewalk and road repairs.
- More investment for downtown areas.
- Revitalize Nechako Centre.
- Money towards accessible housing like seniors housing, and healthcare initiatives.
- Future-proofing the community such as against impacts of international tariffs and post-construction phase.
These are summary highlights. You are welcome to see last year's comments on the 2025 budget page here.
The feedback helps District of Kitimat Council and the staff to understand your priorities.
While we look forward to this year's feedback, here are some highlights of the work done in 2025 that support what you told us last year:
- The District of Kitimat continued to offer both a Commercial Centre Revitalization Tax Exemption program for eligible properties, as well as the Business Facade Improvement Program. The facade program is thanks to funding from Northern Development Initiative Trust. We are currently awaiting to know if we can offer it again in 2026.
- The 2025 road program included sections of Haisla Boulevard towards the industrial area of town, and a portion of Kingfisher Avenue. Pothole patching took place throughout the summer season as usual as well.
- Nechako Centre's demolition completed, and plans are being developed to present to Council for the medium term public use until a development plan is completed and a new development underway.
- Progress continues on the upgraded Water Treatment Plant which will be operational in 2026.
- The District of Kitimat released, through the Affordable Housing Initiatives and Operational Fund, funding for the Kitimat Valley Housing Society's in support of a seniors housing project planned for Loganberry Avenue.
- Kitimat continues to make progress on the five-year economic development strategy. Items being pursued include a potential, permanent outdoor market downtown, as well as other plans to make Kitimat more inviting and vibrant. Ten per cent of the plan has been completed, and 52 per cent is in-progress.
- Also supporting downtown revitalization, detailed design work continued for a spray park envisioned in the Lions Park playground area behind the Kitimat Public Library. Council will deliberate on including the construction cost in the 2026 budget.
We'd also love to highlight the opening of the compost facility at the Kitimat Landfill as another great project which completed in 2025. This means the food waste we collect at the curb can be composted locally to be used for municipal projects. Initially our food waste was transported to a composting facility outside the community.
How to follow the budget process
The municipal budget process is carried out at public Council meetings. Here's how you can be involved:
- Attend or watch our Council meetings. Our agendas, which include details about how to participate, are online at www.kitimat.ca/agendas
- Read up on available documents for both this year's and prior year's budget, at www.kitimat.ca/budget
- Catch up on our annual, audited financial documents as part of our annual report, at www.kitimat.ca/reports
Also, create a free account on the Get Involved Kitimat page, then click +Follow at the top of this page. Throughout the budget process we will send updates to this page's followers, and occasionally to all subscribers of the Get Involved Kitimat site.
